I've been using a 20GB Samsung YH-999 PMC for the past few years... works great, but the screen is fairly terrible and it's a bit bigger than I'd like.  I just got a Samsung Blackjack Windows Mobile 5 Smartphone, and it would be great for occassional TV watching, except for a ridiculous bug.  The phone conduit (activesync) is supposed to commuicate with WMP to tell it what it's capabilities are, and to a certain extent, it does-- WMP will allow me to sync Recorded TV shows to the microSD card on my phone.  Unfortunately, it transcodes them to a movie thats only 160x120, while the screen on the BlackJack is 320x240 (same as with all the PMCs, as well as Zune and iPod).  Is there any way to manually edit the conversion settings for a device, when you set up a sync to WMP?

Thanks for your tips. Unfortunately, I've gotten stuck trying to replace the old version of WMSyncCaps.xml with my editted version.  Maybe this was not the case with the Dash, but on my phone, the original file is hidden and also in ROM.  I was able to find it in Explorer on my PC (while connected via activesync), which is how I got the file to modify.  But I can't manipulate it (delete it, rename it, or replace it) from the PC. On the phone itself, I d/l'ed Resco, and can't even see the file in the Windows folder (although I can see the WMSyncCaps2.xml file that I put there).  So I tried to rename WMSyncCaps2.xml to WMSyncCaps.xml, and I get a couple of confirmation screens asking if I want to overwrite the read-only file WMSyncCaps.xml even though it's it ROM.  I say yes, but I eventually get an error: "Cannot rename file 'WMSyncCaps2.xml'. Access denied."  Any tips?  Is it possible that the file is more accessible in the Dash than in the BJ?

As for the quality of the video, there are user-accessible settings to modify conversion quality, although these don't affect resolution.  You should be able to find a setting that makes the video look as good as on your PMC (unless you think it's a processor limitation of the Dash)...

Update: I did a Google search for WMSyncCaps.xml and found some of the discussions about this tweak.  One thing to do is simply edit the registry to point to the new file (WMSyncCaps2.xml). This worked for me, since I had no way to delete the original file as it was.

http://www.spv-developers.com/forum/showthread.php?t=338

Thanks again for pointing me in the right direction. 

Another update... Modifying the WMSyncCaps.xml file allowed my to adjust the pixel resolution settings for the automatic video conversion in WMP for my WinMo device (now a Motorola Q, instead of a Blackjack).  But as slightlyseven noted, the video quality was still not as good as on our dedicated PMCs.  Turns out that the WMSyncCaps file alse provides WMP with information as to video conversion bitrates to use. Whereas my Samsung PMC was receiving converted files at 800 kbps, my Q was only getting files at 164 kbps, which was pretty unwatchable. 

I was able to resolve this by modifying the text in the xml file.  There are 4 locations where the TotalBitrate and the VideoBitrate are set for the two video formats (ASF and WMV).

In those 4 locations, I changed the maximum value from 164000 and 128000 to 656000 and 592000.

Here's an example of one of the new lines:

           <Property Name="WMDM/TotalBitrate">
                <Range Minimum="4000" Maximum="656000" Step="1"/>

Once the XML file is updated, proceed as above, and you should be able to select higher bitrates under Tools/Options/Devices/<your device>/Properties/Quality

Much improved!  I also recommend switching to the free video player TCPMP for more control over your video playing (including the ability to do 30s skips and 8s replays).  V72RC1 works for my Q, although it occassionally crashes when you kill it in a task manager.

Nice!  I was just going to check into this myself... thanks for doing all the work, and taking the time to post.  I'm going to give this a try with my Dash.

GAH!  Nevermind.. figured out I had to use the MOBILE registry editor.